Blogging Tips Archives - Page 29 of 37

Simple guide to installing a self-hosted WordPress blog

Posted on June 17, 2017

In my opinion, WordPress is the most powerful blogging platform out there, and it’s completely free. Some of the largest and busiest websites on the Internet are powered by WordPress, and many of them bear no external resemblance whatsoever to a typical “blog”.

It’s easy to open a free account at WordPress.com and be blogging in 5 minutes, but there are several important advantages of installing WordPress on your own hosting account with your own domain name. And it’s really pretty easy to do! [Read more…]

Q&A: Why is the ‘Update Now’ link in AWstats missing?

Posted on May 18, 2017

Question from Francessa H.: Hi Rick. I have a problem with my WordPress blog and I hope you can help me fix it.

I recently moved by blog from another web host with CPANEL.

When the blog was on on the old server I could click the “Update Now” link in AWstats and it would immediately update my blog stats. But the “Update Now” link has been missing ever since I switched to the new host.

How can I get that link back? I like checking my stats a couple of times each day and without the update link I have to wait for the stats to be updated over night.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: Would you recommend setting up my own web server?

Posted on May 13, 2017

Question from Paul: I have three blogs (each in a different niche) that currently receive anywhere from 4,000 to 20,000 visitors per month. The two largest blogs have started loading really slow.

All three blogs have been hosted with Godaddy for about four years now. I know it’s time to move them to a dedicated server but the cheapest plan I can find is way out of my budget.

My question is do you think it would be a good idea to move them onto my own server? I have a spare Gateway DX4860-UB32P with 8Gigs of RAM that I can install Red Hat Linux and Apache on. I also have a 60 Mbps Internet connection with Charter.

Do you think this would be a good setup to replace my Godaddy hosting? I make a couple of hundred bucks from my blogs each month but I’d like to eventually make it full time and quit my job so I don’t want to make a big mistake.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: How can I add the www to my WordPress blog’s URL?

Posted on April 23, 2017

Question from Chuck F.: Rick, I followed the instructions in your guide to creating a self-hosted WordPress blog and created my very first blog over the weekend. Everything went well with no problems whatsoever.

I was wondering though if there is a way to change the blog’s URL to include the www part? Right now my blog is at http://example.com and I want it to be http://www.example.com.

Rick’s answer: Hi Chuck! By default the WordPress installation script creates the blog URL without the www, but most bloggers prefer to have it included. Here’s how to add the www to your blog’s URL: [Read more…]

Add super-secure Two-Factor Authentication to your WordPress blog in 5 minutes!

Posted on December 28, 2016

Update: Although it is absolutely awesome, I can no longer recommend installing the Clef Security plugin described in this post.

The company has just announced that they will be shutting the Clef service down in June 2017.

I have switched all of my WordPress blogs over to the fantastic Google Authenticator plugin/mobile app and I recommend that you install it on your blogs as well.

The original post continues below…

If you own and/or maintain a blog built on the popular WordPress platform you probably worry that a hacker could break into your blog’s admin section and take over your blog at any time.

And with hackers attacking blogs right and left these days, you are definitely right to be worried about the security of your blog!

A while back I wrote a post explaining how to set up Two-Factor Authentication on WordPress by installing the popular Duo Security plugin, but I stopped recommending that method after I was unable to resolve several serious issues I was having with it.

After removing the Duo plugin I started looking around for an alternative. I quickly found a plugin/service called Clef Security that turned out to be nothing short of amazing. [Read more…]